


A Walking Disaster

by ElCapitan18



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Love, mention of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5972128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElCapitan18/pseuds/ElCapitan18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bella Hawke is a drunken mess on any given day, but ever since Fenris walked away from her she's been worse than ever. A drunken stroll turns into a run in with one of Kirkwall's many street gangs, and there's only one healer willing to put up with her bullshit at this hour of the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Walking Disaster

She dragged herself up the stairs and her toes accidentally hooked on the edge of the last step, nearly causing her to tumble forward. A surprised laugh came out of her as Bella Hawke caught herself before she could fall flat on her face, her hands held out to steady her balance even as her head spun. And they said rogues were supposed to be graceful. Perhaps a drunken stroll through Dark Town wasn’t very high ranking on her list of “Brilliant Ideas.”

When finally she felt like she wasn’t about to be reacquainted with supper, and the many drinks that had followed, Bella started on her path once more. An upward glance confirmed that the lanterns were out. Luckily for her, she was just drunk enough to not care. 

Leaning her forearm on the doorframe, Bella rested her forehead on her arm and pounded a fist on the worn wooden surface. _Three coppers says I can kick it down with just one try_ , a part of her brain wagered as the other shooed the thought. 

This was a “Sanctum of Healing,” if she kicked the door in a fun-hating blue spirit was likely to have her head. In the morning she’d happily offer it to him, but tonight she was riding a pleasant buzz. Bella didn’t want to think about her future hangover, or about anything at all for that matter. Not thinking was why she was drunk in the first place.

Several minutes had passed without an answer, or an hour, days maybe; that last one felt right. She’d been standing outside for _days_ and if he didn’t come to the door soon she was probably going to die or something. Bella beat the side of her fist into the door again, knocking three or four times before letting her arm fall and hang at her side. 

“ _—_ _any idea what bloody hour it is?”_ a voice shouted from inside, just before ripping the door open. The force of the door sweeping inward blew Bella’s curls back, and she imagined how she might look to the man now standing on the other side of the threshold. 

There was surprise in Anders’s voice when he greeted her. “Hawke?” She could feel him inspecting her closely, the healer in him taking over as he regarded the woman before him. “Are you alright?”

“Right as rain,” she groaned before peeking over her forearm and peering up at the tall mage in front of her. A smile curled the corner of her mouth and she tried to straighten herself out. When a sharp pain flared in Bella’s side, she remembered why she’d come all this way. 

Noticing the pained expression that briefly twisted her features, Anders held Bella by the elbow and guided her into his clinic. With a single thought and a flick of his wrist, every lantern in the clinic came to life. “You’re hurt,” he observed, helping her onto a nearby cot so that he could look over her more closely. A sniff later he added, “You’re drunk.”

Bella laughed heartily and immediately regretted it. She held onto her side and groaned. A chuckle escaped her and, through grit teeth, she replied, “With just four words you’ve so perfectly described me as a person, Anders.” Sweeping her curls from her face, she grinned at the man as she investigated, “How do you know me so well? Is it magic?”

A shake of his head was his reply. His focus was on where she was holding her side, and he gently urged her to move her hands, as he commented, “You smell like a brewery, Hawke.”

“You are what you eat,” she rebuked, “or drink, in this case.”

Complying to his demands, Bella moved her hands from her side and let him see the torn fabric of her shirt and the blood that stained it. When Anders instructed her to remove her top, her smile widened. She maintained his gaze as she started to disrobe. 

“Typically someone has to buy me drink before getting this far.”

The patience in Anders’s expression was waning. “You’ve had enough to drink, I think,” he grumbled as she undressed. Light brown eyes focused solely on her injury the moment she was seated in just her breast-band.

He lifted her elbow, a wordless instruction for her to hold the position until he told her otherwise. Bella winced as she complied and watched Anders work. His eyebrows were pinched with concentration, his expression tight as his warm fingers made gentle contact with her skin. When Bella flinched from his touch golden eyes flicked up toward her again and his frown deepened. 

“What happened tonight, Hawke?”

Attention shifting to the space over his head, she shook her head and offered, “The usual,” as answer. Bella almost laughed at the fact that she could physically feel Anders frowning at her. The knowledge of how much it would hurt was the only thing that helped her keep a straight face. “I was minding my own business—“

“Drinking.”

“When a group of hooligans approached me,” she completed. It was a story he had already heard a hundred times before, and that she had lived a thousand times more. The frequency with which she was attacked by strangers while hobbling home from the tavern was ludicrous. One would think, by now, word would have spread that a drunk Hawke could still fight better than a street thug. 

Maker, if she was blind drunk, tied at the wrists, and spun around a dozen times she still would have made quick work of the idiots who came after her at night. Kirkwall had bands of gangs by the spadeful. Quality warriors, however, were much harder to come by. 

Anders put some pressure on her ribcage and she winced again. Through tightly clenched teeth, she continued. “One of them had a hammer, and a surprisingly good arm.”

He leaned back on his haunches and sighed, “That explains the broken ribs.” Anders clapped his hands together before rubbing them and blowing on his fingers. “Let’s get you healed up then, shall we?”

Her hand shot out between them to quickly clasp his forearm, stopping him from pulling from his magic. Maker only knew how much he’d tapped that well already today. Anders was hardly a wisp of the man he’d been when she first met him. She wasn’t going to force him to exhaust himself on her, not over this. 

“Save your magic, Anders,” Bella said with a smile. “Just give me that elfroot concoction you know I like.”

Golden eyes narrowed on her. “A little too much, might I add.” Pushing himself back onto his feet, Anders crossed the clinic to collect some items. His back was to her as he rummaged through his workstation, concern in his voice as he spoke. “This is the third time I’ve seen you this week, Hawke.”

“Getting sick of me, Anders?”

There was the barest of smiles in his voice when he replied. “If you wanted to spend time with me this badly, I can assure you that there are better methods than by getting yourself hurt.”

A forced chuckle tumbled from her before she cleared her throat, ending the exchange. Silence joined them immediately afterwords, long and awkward as Bella stared at the ground beneath her feet. Anders had feelings for her, that was no secret, but ever since her night with Fenris he’d made less of an effort to conceal them. 

Or she was drunk and completely misreading the situation. Bella had a tendency to flirt with everyone and, sometimes, they flirted back. Anders was no different. Their first true exchange had contained a harmless repartee, but as time went on Bella noticed the growing affection in his gaze. Their flirtatious tit-for-tat was no longer harmless and, wanting to preserve her friend’s feelings, she’d avoided innuendos or remarks of any kind that he could mistakenly interpret as his romantic feelings being reciprocated.

Anders was her friend, and a damn good one too. Bella didn’t want to lose their friendship over some imaginary romance. 

When he returned it was with an arm full of bandages and some other nondescript items in hand, all of which he set down on the cot beside her. “Lift your arm,” he instructed, attention on her side as he set out to work. 

Bella did as commanded and lifted her elbow to clear his workspace. She focused on her breathing, both to calm the roll of her stomach and to brace herself for the impending pain. The midnight scuffle with that street gang had sobered her up enough to feel her misplaced rib and the accompanying bruise. Gentle as Anders usually was, this was going to hurt like a bitch. 

In a mirror of her thoughts, Anders advised, “This is going to hurt,” before resetting her ribs. 

 _“Maker’s balls!”_ she cursed through grit teeth. Bella pulled in a series of jagged breaths, each inhale a log on the fire of her pain. She was not drunk enough for this blighted nonsense. 

Anders muttered a distracted, “Sorry,” before picking up a cylindrical container from the cot beside her. Unscrewing the top revealed a clumpy green paste with a slightly bitter smell. He brought the container to his face and blew on the paste, frost crystalizing on its surface before he dipped his fingers into the now chilled contents. 

Even the gentlest touch pulled a grimace from Bella, and Anders was careful as he spread a liberal amount of cold goop onto her side. “This should help with the swelling,” he explained.

Bella’s attention was on the rotting wood of the rafters overhead. Tender as his touch was, it still hurt like the void, and Bella endured it in silence. When he was done, she broke the quiet between them with a soft, “Thank you, Anders.”

He responded with an absent hum and set down the green paste before reaching for the roll of bandages. As he unravelled the bandage and wrapped the cloth around her middle, Anders asked, “Why are you punishing yourself, Bella?”

Surprised by his question, she dropped her gaze from the ceiling to his face. Anders was focused on his task but, at the feeling of her eyes on him, he looked up at her for a short second. A frown formed on her lips at the sincerity of his inquiry. 

Whatever deflective response she had lined up for such a question vanished at the sight of the concern in his expression. She had no witty rejoinder, or sarcastic rebuff. Bella didn’t have a response at all. Why was she punishing herself? Perhaps because if she didn’t no one else would, and they couldn’t have that; now could they?

When the silence between them stretched too long, Anders prodded further. “It’s because of him, isn’t it? Because he walked away from you.”

“Anders,” there was a warning in her tone, her voice low and quiet. “Don’t,” she said, knowing by the look in his eyes that he would not heed her warning.

He shook his head, whether as a refusal or in disbelief she couldn’t tell. “If it were me, I never would have left you.” Light brown eyes focused on securing the bandage around her middle, his gaze stayed aimed on his task as he finished up. “I never would have hurt you like that.”

Bella scoffed, ignoring the flare of pain it sent through her side. “He wasn’t the one who did the hurting.” Anders looked up at her and she locked his gaze with hers so that he could understand that any anger he had toward Fenris was misplaced. “Fenris walking away from me was the smartest thing he’s ever done.”

She pushed herself off of the cot and swiped up her top. Pushing her arms through the sleeves, she gingerly pulled the fabric over her head and pulled her hair from beneath the fabric. Anders stood in front of her, the worry in his eyes now that of a healer for his patient, and not of a lover for his beloved. 

“You can stay, Bella,” Anders reminded her. He placed a hand on her elbow and tried to usher her back into the cot. 

Pulling her arm from his grasp, she shook her head and argued. “No, I can’t.”

Before she could circle around him for the exit, Anders quickly stepped in her path. “Hawke,” he almost pleaded. “I can see that you’re in pain. Let me help you.”

The help that Anders now offered her wasn’t the professional kind. He wanted more. He wanted feelings, intimacy, a relationship that was different than the friendly one they currently had. Anders wanted the part of Bella that had sent Fenris running for the hills. He wanted what he couldn’t have, what she couldn’t give, what was no longer hers to dole out anyway. 

“Please, Anders, don’t,” she murmured, searching his face for any sign that he would relent from his pursuit. When she found none she clenched her jaw and dropped her gaze to the ground. With a shake of her head, she met his eyes again and gently revealed, “If I stay with you now, it won’t be because I want you. It will be because I do not want to be alone. Don’t you think that you deserve better than that?”

He didn’t answer, though his reply was clear in his eyes. 

She gave him an apologetic look. “I am a walking disaster, Anders.” If that wasn’t obvious already. “Don’t give me the power to break your heart, because in the end I always do.”

This time when Bella walked around him he didn’t try to stop her. She started for the door and, with her hand pressed to the splintered wood, she said over her shoulder, “Gratitude for your help, but I’ve a disappointed mother to let down some more and a bottle of wine that promises to put me to sleep. Best not to keep either of them waiting.”

Not waiting for his response, she pushed past the door and back into the night. The stomach turning smell of Dark Town punched her in the gut, and Bella swallowed hard to keep from being sick. It was fortunate that she had a way back to the estate from this pit. As much as she adored awkward encounters with trusted friends, she’d met her quota for the night and didn’t want to end up right back where she’d started. 

Bella was not drunk enough for this shit, but soon that would no longer be the case.


End file.
